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From the Carpet to the Executive Committee: Women Leading Women’s Gymnastics

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Book cover Histories of Women's Work in Global Sport

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Sport and Politics ((PASSP))

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Abstract

Competitive gymnastics has made space for women since the 1930s, making it historically progressive in terms of gender participation. But paradoxically, it has always encouraged female-oriented stereotypes. This research looks at three of the rule makers throughout the twentieth century: Egle Abruzzini, Jackie Fie and Naomi Valenzo. Each served on the technical committees of the International Gymnastics Federation that governed women’s disciplines. This “intergenerational collective biography” highlights how the conditions of women’s influence in gymnastics have, and have not, changed over the twentieth century. Moreover, it allows us to critically reflect on how progressive gymnastics really was, when women’s leadership has been limited to a separate sphere for women only.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Her father in law, Count Adam Zamoysky was President of FIG at this time. Monique Berlioux, “Olympic Encyclopedia: Gymnastics and Archery,” April 1985. Retrieved from www.library.la84.org.

  2. 2.

    Georgia Cervin, “A Balance of Power: Women’s Artistic Gymnastics During the Cold War and Its Aftermath,” (PhD diss., University of Western Australia, 2017), 17.

  3. 3.

    Margaret C. Brown, “Gymnastic Reunion in Prague,” The Journal of Health and Physical Education 10, no. 5 (1939): 270–318.

  4. 4.

    Georgia Cervin, Claire Nicolas, Sylvain Dufraisse, Anaïs Bohuon, and Grégory Quin, “Gymnastics’ Centre of Gravity: The Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique, Its Governance and the Cold War, 1956–1976,” Sport in History 37, no. 3 (2017): 309–31.

  5. 5.

    See for instance, Cervin, “A Balance of Power.”; Grégory Quin, Devenir un sport olympique. “Jalons pour une” histoire comparée des développements de la gymnastique rythmique en France et en Suisse (1961–2011), report for l’Académie Nationale Olympique Française, 2014.

  6. 6.

    Susanne Gannon, Susan Walsh, Michele Byers, and Mythili Rajiva, “Deterritorializing Collective Biography,” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 27, no. 2 (2014): 181–95.

  7. 7.

    These disciplines are Men’s Artistic Gymnastics , Women’s Artistic Gymnastics , Rhythmic Gymnastics , Acrobatic Gymnastics, Aerobic Gymnastics, Trampoline, Gymnastics for all, and most recently, Parkour.

  8. 8.

    Gertrud Pfister, “Cultural Confrontations: German Turnen, Swedish Gymnastics and English Sport—European Diversity in Physical Activities from a Historical Perspective,” Culture, Sport, Society 6, no. 1 (2003): 61–91.

  9. 9.

    Monique Berlioux, “Olympic Encyclopedia: Gymnastics and Archery,” April, 1985. Retrieved from www.library.la84.org.

  10. 10.

    Quin, Devenir un sport olympique, 52.

  11. 11.

    Harold Smith, “Sex vs. Class: British Feminists and the Labour Movement, 1919–1929,” Historian 47, no. 1 (November 1984): 19–37; Audrey Kobayashi, Linda Peake, Hal Benenson, and Katie Pickles (eds.), Women, Work, and Place (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1994), 18.

  12. 12.

    Marilyn J. Boxer and Jean H. Quataert (eds.), Connecting Spheres: Women in the Western World 1500 to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).

  13. 13.

    Brown, “Gymnastic Reunion in Prague.”

  14. 14.

    Deborah Simonton, A History of Women’s Work (London: Routledge, 1998), 8.

  15. 15.

    Simonton, A History of Women’s Work, 9.

  16. 16.

    Charles W. Hayford, “Where’s the Omelet? Bad King Deng and the Challenges of Biography and History,” Journal of Asian Studies 75, no. 1 (2016): 19–30.

  17. 17.

    Lucy Riall, “The Shallow End of History? The Substance and Future of Political Biography,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 40, no. 3 (2010): 375–97.

  18. 18.

    Riall, “The Shallow End,” 376.

  19. 19.

    Gannon et al., “Deterritorializing.”

  20. 20.

    Frigga Haug, “Memory as a Method of Social Science Research: A Detailed Rendering of Memory-Work Research,” 1999. http://www.friggahaug.inkrit.de/documents/memorywork-researchguidei7.pdf.

  21. 21.

    Gannon et al., “Deterritorializing,” 183–84.

  22. 22.

    Egle Abruzzini, interview with Gregory Quin, April 7, 2013.

  23. 23.

    Angela Teja, Educazione fisica al femminile. Dai primi corsi di Torino di ginnastica educativa per le maestre (1867) alla ginnastica moderna di Andreina Gotta-Sacco (1904–1988) (Rome: Società Stampa Sportiva, 1995); Renata Freccero, Storia dell’Educazione Fisica e Sportiva in Italia (Torino: Levrotto et Bella, 2013).

  24. 24.

    Quin, Devenir un sport olympique.

  25. 25.

    Egle Abruzzini, interview with Gregory Quin, April 7, 2013.

  26. 26.

    Egle Abruzzini, interview with Gregory Quin, April 7, 2013.

  27. 27.

    Personal Archives Egle Abruzzini (Urbino), First judge attestation, 1969.

  28. 28.

    This committee’s missions are focused around the technical changes in RG regulations and it took charge of the international team of judges responsible for the evaluation of gymnastics contests, such as the world championships and the Olympic Games.

  29. 29.

    Personal Archives Egle Abruzzini (Urbino), different versions of the ICP (1975–2008).

  30. 30.

    Among Abruzzini’s writings, we can quote: Considerazioni storiche e “pedagogiche” sulla funzione della ginnastica moderna, in: Quaderni di storia, filosofia e letteratura, 1, 1973; Linee di ginnastica moderna. Tecniche, metodologie e didattica (Urbino: Argalìa Ed., 1974); Fondamenti tecnici della ginnastica ritmica educativa (Rome: FGI Romagraphica-Tipar, 1982).

  31. 31.

    Egle Abruzzini, interview with Gregory Quin, April 7, 2013.

  32. 32.

    FIG, Official Bulletin, no. 106, p. 97.

  33. 33.

    IOC, FIG Documents, Olympic programme 1950–1984, Letter from the president of the programme commission to the FIG president, March 13, 1979.

  34. 34.

    Marisa Aparo et al., Ginnastica ritmica (Rome: Piccin, 1999), 234.

  35. 35.

    Abruzzini, interview with Gregory Quin, September 26, 2014.

  36. 36.

    Personal Archives Egle Abruzzini (Urbino), different versions of the ICP (1975–2008).

  37. 37.

    André Huguenin, 100 ans de la Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique, 1881–1981 (Moutier: FIG, 1981), 80.

  38. 38.

    Quin, Devenir un sport olympique.

  39. 39.

    Personal Archives Egle Abruzzini (Urbino), Diverse documents about the Zaragoza EC.

  40. 40.

    FIG, Official Bulletin, no. 182, August 2001, 159.

  41. 41.

    FIG, Official Bulletin, no. 183, April 2001, 161.

  42. 42.

    FIG, Official Bulletin, no. 186, April 2002, 121.

  43. 43.

    Egle Abruzzini, “L’exercice d’ensemble en GRS: la chorégraphie,” in Françoise Napias and Henri Hélal (eds.), Les Cahiers de l’INSEP: GRS le sens d’une évolution (Paris: INSEP, 1997), 11–20.

  44. 44.

    About sportification, one can read: Norbert Elias and Éric Dunning, Quest for Excitement: Sport and Leisure in the Civilizing Process (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986); and more specifically about RG: Grégory Quin, “History of Swiss Feminine Gymnastics Between Competition and Feminization (1950–1990),” Sport in Society 19, no. 5 (2016): 653–66.

  45. 45.

    Jacque Day Archer and Jamie Wirsbinski Santoro, Rogers Park (Charleston, NC: Arcadia Publishing, 2007), 103–4.

  46. 46.

    Bruce Frederick, “First Lady of Gymnastics Retires,” Technique Magazine, USA Gymnastics, March 2005, 22–23. See also Day Archer and Santoro, Rogers Park.

  47. 47.

    “Jackie Fie,” International Gymnastics Hall of Fame, 2014. https://www.ighof.com/.

  48. 48.

    Day Archer and Santoro, Rogers Park; “Jackie Fie,” International Gymnastics Hall of Fame, 2014. https://www.ighof.com/.

  49. 49.

    Lisa Colonno, “Jackie Fie,” Des Moines Register. http://data.desmoinesregister.com/.

  50. 50.

    Day Archer and Santoro, Rogers Park; Beth Lipoff “Judging Jackie,” Northwestern Magazine, Summer 2004.

  51. 51.

    Colonno, “Jackie Fie”.

  52. 52.

    Bruce Frederick, “First Lady of Gymnastics Retires,” Technique Magazine, USA Gymnastics, March 2005, 22–23.

  53. 53.

    Lipoff, “Judging Jackie.”

  54. 54.

    Jackie Fie, LinkedIn, 2018.

  55. 55.

    Fie, LinkedIn, 2018.

  56. 56.

    Fie, LinkedIn, 2018.

  57. 57.

    Fie, LinkedIn, 2018.

  58. 58.

    Lipoff, “Judging Jackie.”

  59. 59.

    Colonno, “Jackie Fie.”

  60. 60.

    Fie, LinkedIn, 2018.

  61. 61.

    Colonno, “Jackie Fie.”

  62. 62.

    Jackie Fie, correspondence with Georgia Cervin, April 22, 2019.

  63. 63.

    Frederick, “First Lady of Gymnastics Retires.”

  64. 64.

    Lipoff, “Judging Jackie.”

  65. 65.

    USA Gymnastics Magazine 5, no. 2, September/October 1992, 5.

  66. 66.

    Fie, LinkedIn, 2018.

  67. 67.

    Cervin, A Balance of Power.

  68. 68.

    “Jackie Fie,” International Gymnastics Hall of Fame, 2014. https://www.ighof.com/.

  69. 69.

    Lipoff, “Judging Jackie.”

  70. 70.

    Georgia Cervin, “Gymnasts Are Not Merely Circus Phenomena: Influences on the Development of Women’s Artistic Gymnastics During the 1970s,” The International Journal of the History of Sport 32, no. 16 (2016): 1940.

  71. 71.

    Jackie Fie, correspondence with Georgia Cervin, April 22, 2019.

  72. 72.

    FIG, FIG Authorities’ Biographies. https://administration.fig-gymnastics.com/bios/17738.pdf, accessed April 5, 2018.

  73. 73.

    Naomi Valenzo, interview with Axel Elías, June 15, 2012 and May 7, 2018.

  74. 74.

    Naomi Valenzo, online interview with Axel Elías, May 7, 2018. According to the Women in Gymnastics commission, only 32% of the national federations are led by women, while 44% are vice-presidents. Valenzo is representative of this last sample. FIG women in gymnastics commission, Survey Report of Gender Equality in Gymnastics, 2017, p. 28.

  75. 75.

    According to the list provided by CODEME (Confederación Deportiva Mexicana – Mexican Confederation of Sports), only four women preside over sport federations: Oralia Margarita Vázquez Coutiño—Aikido; Maria Eugenia Rivera Lara—Sports for the deaf; María del Carmen García Orozco—Hockey, and Ana Claudia Collado García—Autochthonous and traditional games and sports. CODEME, Confederación Deportiva Mexicana. http://www.com.org.mx/federaciones/, accessed March 18, 2019.

  76. 76.

    It is interesting to notice that only PAGU has had women as presidents of continental gymnastics unions and federations. FIG, Continental Unions. http://www.fig-gymnastics.com/site/about/federation/brief/continental_unions, accessed April 3, 2018.

  77. 77.

    Cervin, A Balance of Power.

  78. 78.

    Naomi Valenzo, online interview with Axel Elías, May 7, 2018.

  79. 79.

    Valenzo, online interview.

  80. 80.

    FIG currently has a Women in Gymnastics Commission that is led by Slava Corn. Their 2017 report shows that 58% of the senior international athletes are women; gymnastics is one of few sports that has more female than male participation in the Olympics. FIG women in gymnastics commission, Survey Report of Gender Equality in Gymnastics, 2017.

  81. 81.

    Valenzo, interview.

  82. 82.

    Susan Wendell, “A (Qualified) Defense of Liberal Feminism,” Hypatia 2, no. 2 (1987): 65–93.

  83. 83.

    For a debate on the definition of individual forms of feminism, see: Loretta Kensinger, “(In)Quest of Liberal Feminism ,” Hypatia 12, no. 4 (1997): 178–97.

  84. 84.

    Valenzo, interview.

  85. 85.

    Cervin, “A Balance of Power.”

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia

    Georgia Cervin

  2. University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Grégory Quin

  3. King’s College London, London, UK

    Axel Elías Jiménez

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  1. Georgia Cervin
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  2. Grégory Quin
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  3. Axel Elías Jiménez
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia

    Georgia Cervin

  2. University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Claire Nicolas

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Cervin, G., Quin, G., Elías Jiménez, A. (2019). From the Carpet to the Executive Committee: Women Leading Women’s Gymnastics. In: Cervin, G., Nicolas, C. (eds) Histories of Women's Work in Global Sport. Palgrave Studies in Sport and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26909-8_10

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